Category Archives: Year 7

What do do with your summer after a week at home and the temptation to scream aloud, ‘I’m boooooored!’? Why not escape to a new world, a new country in a different part of the world, a different time period? Why not live the life of a spy, a rebel, a prince, or a Harvard symbologist? Where can you do all these things? Those of you who’ve been paying attention will know the answer already. Books, of course!

The Summer Reading Challenge takes place every year here in the UK across the country and allows you to chart your progress with reading and foster great habits that will sustain you over a lifetime of great reading. All you have to do is go to your local library, register, and read six books of your choice. Every two books that you read, you go back, talk to someone at the library about the books you’ve read and take out two more, receiving cool, free stuff as you go along and with a bigger prize and celebrations around the country at the end of the summer.

If it sounds a bit daunting, don’t worry. Librarians and Reading Challenge volunteers are ready to help you choose books that appeal to your interests and to your reading ability that you will enjoy and find inspiring. And if you are a confident reader, love books and are between 11-24, you can volunteer to help with the Summer Reading Challenge.

If you’ve not heard of the Jimmy Coates series by Joe Craig, I suggest you take a trip to the library and ask Mrs. Venuto to kindly point you in the direction of Jimmy Coates: Killer, the first in this award-winning series of books about a teenage boy who finds out that he has been genetically engineered by the government to be the perfect killing machine.

Popular with many a reader here at King Solomon, each one of these spy/action thrillers is a gripping story from start to finish. So it is with great delight that I read a few weeks ago that the seventh and what is rumoured to be the penultimate instalment was published on the 6 June and that the author, Joe Craig, was doing readings and signings in local bookshops in East London.

Not only is Mr Craig a gifted storyteller, but he is also very generous with his time, as we all know having hosted him at this school four years ago. Through diligent efforts, Mrs. Venuto arranged that the author come and chat to groups from key stage 3 and 4 about his novels, writing, and the process of storytelling. You can read more about his visit to KS here and you can see a trailer for Blackout here.

A new book coming out is a great event. Don’t just sit there! Go and read! Enjoy!